Yahoo Autos What’s Happening with Future Minis?
BMW has shared its strategy regarding both its modular next-generation architecture and its plans for the rapid electrification of its range, but the company has given us far less detail about what it is planning for Mini.
We already know that there will be a Mini E electric vehicle, which will likely reach the U.S. in 2020, but it’s based on the current car rather than an introduction of a new architecture. Official details are lacking, but we believe it will use a version of the i3’s electric motor and will be priced to undercut its BMW sibling.
While larger Mini models such as the Countryman ultimately will move to BMW’s new FAAR platform, there is no confirmation of what the future holds for the smaller Mini hardtop, which sits on the older UKL1 architecture and was introduced in 2014.
One intriguing possibility is that it could be replaced by a new car co-developed with Chinese automaker Great Wall. In February, BMW confirmed that it had been talking with Great Wall over a joint venture for “local production of future battery-electric Mini vehicles in the world’s largest market for electromobility.” The use of “future” would seem to suggest that this is likely to be a deal involving the development of a new car.
China is already the biggest market for the BMW brand, and Mini hopes to follow the same path. Although Mini’s sales have been falling in the United States, declining 9.5 percent in 2017 to 47,105, they have been increasing in China, where the brand delivered some 35,000 vehicles last year. China’s aggressive move to electrification means that could expand dramatically with a next-generation EV model.
BMW has also warned this week that it will reconsider investment in the U.K. if the British government is unable to reach a favorable Brexit deal, which raises doubts about the long-term future of the Oxford plant that builds the majority of Minis. It would not require too many stars to align for a China-made electric Mini to have significant potential in other parts of the world.
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